Books, Bites and Birthdays

It was my youngest son's birthday today. He has a family of his own now to be daddy to and he's a wonderful daddy. But I'm not sure he ever taught his kids to eat the peanut butter and pancake syrup on biscuits that his dad taught him to eat when he was just a little tyke. He could never talk the other kids into giving it a try, but he had success here with a little "open wide and take a bite" demonstration encouragement. 

My son loved riding bikes, camping out, and climbing trees when he was a kid. Sometimes I'd look up and he and a neighbor friend would be perched way above my head. How I kept from going to fetch a ladder, I don't know. But the limbs always held them and I never had to call the fire department to come get them down. 

He hit a few bumpy places in the road going through adolescence and I had some sleepless nights waiting up for him to get home from wherever. Some kids struggle a little more trying out their wings and some mothers get a few more gray hairs watching them chasing independence. 

But he made it through and fell in love with a hometown girl. What a blessing it has been to see his family grow and what a gift his children have been to this grandmother. 

Now sometimes when he visits, we go "exploring" with the grandkids. He's ready to look at the rocks and trees and point out nature's wonders to his kids. And to me. 

Jessamine had that kind of curiosity in my Shaker book, The Gifted. She wanted to know about everything which made her life in the Shaker community difficult at times. Here's what a reviewer on Amazon had to say about her. "Dear, sweet Jessamine was such a beautiful character - both inwardly and outwardly. She had such an innocence and complete joy about her. I easily fell in love with her.... And seeing the world through her eyes, when she leaves the Shakers, gives you a different, new perspective of things we take for granted."

I did enjoy writing about Jessamine. I think she's been the only main character in any of my stories that I let have blonde hair. Generally my characters are sensible, capable, determined even if things don't always go right for them. But not Jessamine. She had childlike joy in life and was ready to let her imagination take wing and embrace whatever came her way without considering what obstacles might await her. 

Monday is the last day to grab the e-book for $1.99 at Amazon or Barnes & Noble  before the price goes back up. 

Tweet: A little curiosity can make life more fun. http://ctt.ec/7cegL+

What's in a Name?

One thing they never tell you about child raising is that for the rest of your life, at the drop of a hat, you are expected to know your child's name and how old he or she is. ~Erma Bombeck

That's true for mamas and also for writers. I'll be giving a book talk and somebody will ask something about one of the characters in my book. They will have forgotten the name, but they expect me to remember. That's certainly understandable. They didn't invent them and live with them for a year or more while they were writing their stories. No, that was me, but sometimes the names slip away, especially if it wasn't a major character in the story.

You see, there are a lot of people to name in a novel. Of course you start out with the main characters, your hero and heroine. Then you start fleshing them in with family members and friends. Think about all the people in your own extended family. Add in the people you went to school with. Now the ones you've worked with. Oh, and all those people at church. And don't forget your Facebook friends. 

Names circle us like a swarm of bees. Sometimes the names stick and rise up to our lips when we need to speak the name. Sometimes the name is firmly entrenched in our brain, but it refuses to come out where we can say it. At least, not when we want it to. It generally shows up hours later while we're thinking about something totally different. The name will pop into our head out of the blue and sometimes we'll say we knew it started with a "J" or whatever letter. 

I have named dozens and dozens of characters. Some years ago, I started keeping a record of my major characters' names. That's supposed to help keep me from using the same names over and over. I tend to like some names more than others. 

I'm editing a book I wrote several years ago that never found a publisher. I decided I needed to change one of my secondary character's name. I have seen other writers ask their Facebook friends for help with name, so I decided to do the same. I asked what they would name the small town newspaper editor. He's the kind of guy that sort of rubs people the wrong way with his questions since they feel he's always trying to get a story out of them. But he's not a bad guy. He does want the town to do well, but he also wants to sell newspaper. He's in his late thirties and the story is set in the 1990's here in Kentucky. His last name is Leland.

I had originally named him Miles which I do like, but it's too much like my main character's name, Michael. Readers might get confused if they were reading fast about who was who. So I asked my Facebook friends what they would name this guy. And before morning I had over 80 comments. Now, after a few days, I've gotten around 125 names. 

So tonight, for fun, I wrote down all the great suggestions. The amazing thing is that in all those names, there weren't all that many repeat suggestions. Clark was the most suggested name with 7. Phil or Phillip was runner-up with 6. Most of the names were single suggestions. Everybody had a different idea of what to name my pesky little editor. I wanted a one syllable name and there were many suggestions that had me nodding my head and thinking, yes, that might work. But he's just one guy and so he only needs one name. I've already tried Lloyd. No one suggested that name. And Kyle. Two or three suggested that name. Those names didn't seem to fit. And so, right now I'm going with Hank. That was suggested by a couple of people. 

Hank Leland. What do you think? Does that sound like a pesky newspaper man who is always ready to dig for a story? If not, what do you suggest? 

Naming characters is actually a fun part of writing fiction. But I do like for the name to fit. Sometimes that takes some brainstorming before a writer can settle on the perfect name. And sometimes that name gets changed and then changed again. 

No wonder I can't remember some of my characters' names. Could be, I'm still considering changing those names. LOL.

On the Hunt for "The End"

One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment. ~Hart Crane

Once more I am searching for the end of a story. Once more it seems to be hiding from me behind a crazy mixture of words that don’t seem to be paving the pathway I need to glide on toward “the end.” Once more I’m feeling the way I did back in 2009 when I wrote this:

It's been a hard work week so far with too many other things I have to do getting in the way of my five pages a day quota to make sure I meet my summer deadline. I've been writing and maybe almost getting my pages, but at the end of the day I sometimes end up thinking that I'm going to have to cut most of those words in the final draft. But I tell myself to just get the words out there where I can cut them or improve them, where I can tell the story I'm trying to tell. In the best way I can.

That’s one of the good things about keeping a writing journal. You can see you’ve been in the same place before. You can see that it wasn’t fatal. The story did get written. You can see that it even got published and people read it. Maybe not as many people as you might hope. Most all writers wouldn’t mind an appearance on the New York Times Bestseller list, but any reader’s list is good too.

I’m not sure which book I was writing in 2009. Maybe The Seeker or The Blessed. I’m almost sure it must have been one of my Shaker books. That’s what I’m searching for the end of once again. A Shaker book. I’m anxious to be at the end. I tremble a bit thinking about reading it over once I find those elusive words for fear I have not written the story I hoped to write when I first typed in the words “Chapter 1” and began.

The post back in 2009 was titled “Making the Words Disappear.” You can click on this link if you want to read the rest of what I wrote then. That is what a writer needs to do - make the words disappear. A writer wants readers to be living the story with the characters and not simply reading about them. Some years ago I was teaching a community ed class on writing and one of the sessions was how to make characters come to life. In the process of searching for something that might keep my wannabe writers interested in this very uneducated in writing processes teacher I searched for inspiring advice from other writers who were more educated in the writing process. One of the things I read that I have never forgotten was a writer saying she wanted to create characters who would crawl up into a reader’s heart and find a home there. That’s what I want to do. That’s what I’m trying to do with this book as I push my people out on the paths that will help me find an end of the story that will satisfy them and me and you, the reader.

Do the words disappear for you when you’re reading? 

Have you met characters that you invited into your heart and that you remembered long after you came to the end?

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. ~William Wordsworth

Meeting a Character in Person

Readers make Blogging Fun

One of the best things about blogging is getting to know you readers through your comments. You are such an encouraging community for me. Writers spend a lot of time in "solitary confinement" while digging stories out of their heads. Of course, we're not totally alone. We have all those characters yanking on our imaginations trying to get our attention. 


Conflict Makes a Story

Sunday I wrote about how life can be messy even for fictional characters. I guess in stories, life has to be a little messy because if there's no problem, there's no story. Got to have conflict. Got to have something your characters are trying to defeat or achieve or perhaps simply survive. Once a writer decides what that conflict is going to be, then to make a story really good, the writer needs to keep making it harder and harder for the character to reach whatever goal is out there for him or her. You've got to throw some boulders in his way. That's true even if the story isn't suspense or mystery. In romance, the characters have to overcome whatever obstacles stand in the way of love. In my work in progress, I'm a little worried I have set up some obstacles too big for love to come calling. That's the trouble with writing books set in my Shaker village. The Shakers took many pains to eliminate romance from their society. 

An Encouraging Comment

But back to your encouraging comments. I got one of those Sunday from Lisa. I shared it on my Facebook page on Mailbag Tuesday, but one thing she said set off an idea for tonight's post. Here's her sentence. "We even said if we met one of your characters on the street, we think we would recognize them!"

That's a really nice compliment. It sounds fun to think about meeting my characters. I know I'd be ready to listen to some Jupiter stories from Wes the way Jocie does in the Heart of Hollyhill books. And it wouldn't be so bad to sit in Mount Pleasant Church and hear her dad preach a sermon or two or be there for a Christmas program with Miss Sally directing. Of course, I do sit in a little church on Sundays that is a whole lot like the Mount Pleasant Church. 

Meeting a Character in Real Life

But once, I did meet one of my characters - not on the street but in a restaurant - and I knew her at once. We were in one of those buffet restaurants (my husband's favorite eating places) and in walked Fern. If you've read my Rosey Corner books (Angel Sister and Small Town Girl) you know Fern. She's also hanging around for a big role in my third Rosey Corner book coming in July, Love Comes Home. But in case you haven't read one of the Rosey Corner books, here's the first time we actually see Fern in Angel Sister.

The skin on Fern's face was weathered and mottled with broken red veins on her high cheekbones, and her steel gray hair looked for all the world as if it was trying to escape from her scalp. The blue of her eyes had faded like old work jeans and had an unfocused, almost feral look. She wore a pair of overalls with big holes in the knees she'd probably stolen off somebody's clothesline years ago. Under the overalls was a dirty white slip. She didn't carry any extra weight, but she'd long ago lost her delicate look. She spent her days cutting cedars now to make her cedar houses instead of sipping tea and doing needlework. 

And so, I was in that restaurant eating lunch a couple of years ago when in walks Fern. She had on overalls over a flannel shirt instead of a slip. Her hair was that steel gray and she didn't look as if she cared whether it was combed or not. She was a little heavier than my fictional Fern and she didn't have the little axe Fern carried around with her. At least I don't think she did! 

The book had already been out a couple of years when I spotted this real life Fern, but it was an interesting experience to see somebody I'd created in my imagination have such a near double in real life. That was before I had a phone that took pictures so I couldn't even sneak a picture of her. I might have been afraid to anyway. My Fern in Rosey Corner is nobody to mess with. And that real life Fern looked the same. 

Invite a Character to Lunch?

So, have you read stories where you think you might like to meet the characters on the street or maybe invite them home for lunch to find out pieces of their stories that might not have been in the book?

Chances to Win Summer of Joy

In case you missed out on winning Summer of Joy in my recent giveaways, you've got some more chances this week. You can check out my guest post "Chasing the Writing Dream through Rejection Valley and Beyond" and leave a comment on Charity's Giveaway Lady blog for a chance to win. Deadline the April 9. Then if you're a Book Club Network participant, Revell Books is giving away 5 copies of Summer of Joy. You just have to answer one of my easy questions on the The Book Club Network page. Dealine to enter 03/31. I'll also be a guest post Thursday on Nora's blog Finding Hope through Fiction where I talk all about my small town inspiration for Hollyhill. Last I'm doing a interview about dreaming on Betty Owens' blog Thursday. 

As always, thanks for reading!! 

Life Can Be Messy

When life is too easy for us, we must beware or we may not be ready to meet the blows which sooner or later come to everyone, rich or poor. (Eleanor Roosevelt)

For the rainbow to appear in the sky, there has to be rain. Storms come in all our lives. Little dashes of rain sometimes and then at other times big floods of sorrow and trouble. We like to think about everything going along smoothly, but most all of us have stepped in a few mud holes as we traversed the roads of our lives.


For He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. ~Matthew 5:45 (NKJ)

Life can be messy. Even for believers. Even when you pray diligently and fervently. Accidents still happen. Betrayals still come our way. We still make mistakes. We give in to temptations or our loved ones do. We say something that injures. We do something we shouldn't. We're human. We might wish we were perfect, but we're not. 

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. ~Romans 3:23 (NKJ)

What has me thinking about all this is a review I saw for one of my Heart of Hollyhill books. Can't remember for sure which title now, but the reader was upset about things that happened in the story. The person wasn't specific about what bothered her, but whatever it was she didn't think such things should be in a Christian book. I don't know what offended the reader. I'm not really worried about that or upset that the person didn't like my story. This isn't about an unhappy reviewer. Her comment just got me to thinking about how life can be messy. 

The characters in my stories are generally Christians or are seeking the Lord. But they aren't perfect. They often have messy lives. Just like the real people around me. We get old. We get sick. We see our kids and grandkids make mistakes. We lose our jobs. We slip on ice and end up on crutches. We back our cars into trees or other people back into us. We stub our toes on the roots of temptation. We shoot for the winning goal and miss. We mess up. And if we don't do the messing up, those we love do. That can hurt just as much or even more.

So I'll probably keep writing stories with some things that might offend the gentler reader. And while I never want to upset a reader, I do want to write a story about people who aren't perfect and who sometimes step in a few mud holes while living their stories.

How about you? Have you ever been so disappointed by a book you were reading that you didn't finish the book and/or wrote a bad review? Editors and publishers do generally make sure the books they publish in the Christian market meet certain moral standards. Do you think those standards are getting too loose as my unhappy reader did?  

I'm going to be a guest on The Bookclub Network this week and my publisher is giving away some copies of Summer of Joy. If you're a member of the Bookclub Network, check it out on Tuesday. Easy to join up to take part in the fun each week.

Every Dog Needs a Name

Dogs, Dogs, and More Dogs
Last week on my Facebook author page, I asked for suggestions for a dog's name. I posted the first picture above as a look alike of the dog in my current work in progress. But he's not exactly right. My dog may be a little more like picture two. And of course Oscar in picture three is wondering why I had to write about a dog that wasn't him. Actually, my fictional dog is a mix of all three. He's not quite as big as dog two, but the look on that dog's face captures some of the personality of my fictional dog. And yet he also has some of the eagerness to please that seems to be in the expression of dog one. And he has a dollop of Oscar's calm confidence.

That's the way it is with coming up with characters whether they are the four-pawed kind or the human kind. A writer takes a little of this and a little of that and invents the character or in this case, dog, that fits her story.

Some Stories have to have a Dog
I have been a dog lover all my life, but I've not written very many books with dogs that played a major role in the story. There was Jocie with her "dog prayer" and then she finds Zeb in the woods or Zeb finds her. A couple of my young adult novels had dogs and in For Sheila, the dogs were major characters and central to the plot. In Chance Hero there was a dog named Maybe. And in my Rosey Corner books, Graham has a dog named Poe and one named Chaucer in Love Comes Home, the book due out in July. I like writing dogs into the story whether they figure strongly in the plot or not. 

A Name that Fits
This dog, the one I'm trying to name, is more central to what's happening in the book. So he needs a really good name. A name that fits. Of course, all characters need a name that fits. Have you ever read a book where you thought the names were all wrong? I have. I've even named some characters of my own and then realized deep in the story that the name just wasn't right. That's how it is with my dog character. I named him Ash. Not bad, but not exactly right either. So I threw open the question of what to name him to my friends on my Facebook page. And boy, did the names start coming in! Around 90 of them. And very few repeat names. Now I have so many choices I'll be able to name every dog in my stories from now on.

The Naming Begins
A few names got more than one vote: Chance, Amos, Sky, Jack, Dash, Shep, Duke and Rocky. But there were many other great suggestions. Some Bible names like Ezra, Bartholomew, Jericho, Joshua, Asher, Joash, Isaac, Jeremiah, and Job. Some of the dog names echoed names I've used for dogs in my life or that I have known like Buster, Max, Tate, Pete, Beau, Roscoe, Charcoal (Coal), Casey and of course, Oscar. A few suggested Civil War names: Yank, Yankey, Jeb, Lincoln (Link), Shiloh, Rebel, Trooper and Sarge. I had suggestions that made me think dogs like Prince, Ace, Rags, Dutch, Ruff, Kip, Rusty, Shadow, Champ, Patch, Pepper, Bingo, Smokey, Smiley, Spark, Lucky, Duke and King. Or Muffin that for some reason made think more of a cat. Some of the names echoed names I've given to my human characters in books, Victor, Love, Sammy, Jake, Stan, Jasper, Buck, Isaac, and Asa.  There were a few names that were a little too fancy for my dog in this story: Rembrandt, Ashford, Comfort, Bentley, Odin, Hauser and Dante. Other names suggested included Murphy, Duncan, Jesse, Nash, Mickey, Boone, Jeb, Sally, Riley, Chester, Simon, Toby and Harve. A couple of names suggested that seemed unusual to me were Trot and Drift or Drifter. Turns out the person who suggested Trot had a dog named Trot. 

Decisions, Decisions
So now I have all these great names and I'm still undecided on the name that best fits my fictional dog. I've been playing around with Asher, one of Jacob's sons in the Bible. So what do you think? When you read through the names, did one of them seem to fit the composite dog above? 

Giveaway News
Remember, I've got a giveaway going to celebrate Summer of Joy getting dressed up in a new cover and about to be available in print again. The prizes are fun things Jocie, my young character in the Heart of Hollyhill stories, might have picked out. You can see the details on my website news & events page. I'll also be picking two winners of winner's choice of one of my books in an extra drawing from those of you who comment here. Each comment on a new post gets you another entry in that drawing. Winners in the USA or Canada will have the choice of a paper book or an e-book. International readers can win the e-book. Jocie's also giving a book away on her blog, Heart of Hollyhill blog. And if that's not enough chances to win, you can sign up on Goodreads to maybe win one of five copies being given away. 

Thanks for reading. And remember what Groucho Marx once said. "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a do, it's too dark to read."

Mystery Pictures and Writing Puzzles

Have you ever seen those close up, really close up, pictures of familiar objects and had no idea what you were looking at? I'm giving you a less challenging mystery picture tonight. Do you know what it is? Let me know what you guess. Or it could be you know what it is at first sight.

Sometimes writing is like that. You might know your story and your characters from the very beginning all the way to the end, or your story and your characters can be mysteries you as the writer have to solve. Characters can't just walk on stage in a book without living a little life first. Well, maybe if a baby was just being born. Then I'd better know about the baby's mother or father or maybe the doctor who could be delivering  a baby for the first time. So many possibilities for every character - even those who aren't going to matter too much to the storyline.

For my major characters, I create character sketches and try to get them to start talking inside my head. But most novels have dozens of characters. Some only make cameo appearances and never darken your book's doorway again. And yet those characters have their moment to be real in your story. So I try to find a few details to make even the most minor character become somebody that, yes, you might see behind the store counter. Or as a nurse or firefighter. If you have a building in your story catch on fire, you need firefighters who know their business, to show up.  Or perhaps not, according to how you want your story to go. But if you create bumbling firefighters, you still have to make them come across as real persons.

Sometimes in a story, a gift character shows up. Wes was that kind of character in Scent of Lilacs. I can't remember planning Wes, but he rode his motorcycle into Hollyhill and ran out of gas money at just the right time. I really missed Wes when I started writing a new story that wasn't set in Hollyhill. So I came up with another Wes like character in Angel Sister - Graham. And I loved getting him to talk in my story just as much.

Sometimes writing a story is about allowing ideas to pop up out of the ground like these mushrooms. (Yes, you wer right if you guessed mushroom.) All that old stuff, those memories from a lifetime of living sink down into a bubbling pool of creativity inside your brain. Then a story rises to the top and if I'm ready, then I can try to grab it fast before it sinks away into that dark world of forgetfulness where the very best ideas always seem to want to hide out. 

Thanks for reading. I hope spring is popping up like these mushrooms in your neck of the woods. Now tell me, did you guess right? I hope I'm guessing right with the characters who are popping up in my new story. 

I'll be at The Bookstore in Campbellsville Saturday, April 13th, at 1 p.m. for a book signing and then at the Southern Kentucky Book Fest on April 20th, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. CST. That's in Bowling Green. If you're in either area, I hope you'll come by and say hi.

The Girl in the Picture

Some things are keepsakes that can't be gotten rid of even though they have no real value other than sentimental attachment. This picture is one of those things here at my mother's house that my sisters and I would never be able to throw away. When we were children, the picture hung in the corner of our aunt's living room. It was painted by my great aunt, Herve, who had a flair for creativity. She had a rock garden in her backyard that was a wonder, and when she decided she needed new flooring in her house, she simply painted her old linoleum gray and then dotted it with a variety of bright colors.  

I don't know when she painted this picture, but it was my aunt's house. Aunt Herve added plenty of personal touches, including my aunt's cats and dogs. She carefully planted the flowers in her picture the same as they were in the yard, if perhaps coloring them a bit brighter. She added plenty of bright birds too. Then there's the pasted on picture of the girl holding a cat. I always imagined I was the girl in the picture, but it most likely represented my older sister since I can't remember when the picture was painted and given to my aunt. But I wanted to be the cute little girl in the picture and so I imagined I was. 

Maybe that was the beginning of me putting myself in a story. That's a question I often get about my writing. How much of this or that character is me? Since I did use my hometown background in my Hollyhill books, readers ask if Jocie is me. And the answer is no. And yes. She isn't me, but she's the girl I imagine I am in the story. A writer has to get inside the skin of her characters, especially her viewpoint characters. And while I have several viewpoint characters in Scent of Lilacs, Jocie is the beginning character, the one the story rotates around. Things happen to her that never happened to me. She does things I would have never had the nerve to do. She is not me. But in a way, I am the girl in the story the way I was the girl in the picture. How? Imagination. 

Actually most of us are the girl in the story or the guy in the story when we're reading. That's why reading is such fun. We live their stories without getting all the bumps and bruises. We laugh with them and cry with them and share their adventures right in the safety of our favorite reading spots. I'm hoping some of you will imagine you are Jocie in Scent of Lilacs when the book is available again in March. Before that, I hope you'll drop by Jocie's blog to get to know the people of Hollyhill. Jocie or one of her friends will be sharing something every Monday for a while. Just click on the tab up at the top of this post or go to www.hollyhillbookofthestrange.blogspot.com. Remember too, if you leave a comment on either this blog or Jocie's blog before March 1, you'll be entered in a blog only giveaway for an autographed copy of Scent of Lilacs. I'll draw three winners and each time you comment, you'll get a new entry. Then maybe you'll be reading and imagining you're the girl in the story.

Thanks so much for reading my journal too.

The Audacity to Begin Again

"In every artist there is a touch of audacity without which no talent is conceivable." ~Johann Wolfgang von Goeth

Tomorrow I will begin. I will sit in front of my computer and think of all the blank pages ahead of me. I will invent characters. I will imagine love and despair. I will seek action and listen to see if I can hear my characters talking. I will dance them this way and that and hope beyond hope that I don't have them doing any kind of jigs they absolutely would never do if I wasn't pulling the strings and making them act contrary to their character. I will believe that I have a story to write.

 

"In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book. I am a writer and I take up my pen to write." ~Pearl S. Buck

 

While Pearl Buck published books before I was born, I am old enough to remember the smooth promise of those reams of paper there on your desk. The blankness of the sheets just begging for words to spill across it. Your words. My words. No computers when I began writing, but it wasn't the dark ages. There were typewriters. So my creative process has been attached to a keyboard for a long, long time. But the thought of taking up a pen to write speaks to the urge in every writer to spill stories out on the page.   

 

Chapter One. Two plain words, but two words that are an enticing invitation into a story. Then I will need a great first line. Sometimes on this loop of writers I'm part of, we'll all share the first line of our works in progress. It's fun to see all the different ways we introduce our stories. Of course, I don't have to have the final, revised perfect first line tomorrow. I'm a long way from my story being in front of readers where I need to have such a great first paragraph that a reader will be caught and not want to stop reading until she or he reaches the end. Right now at this beginning stage, I can have any first line as long as it entices me into the story and makes me want to write the next paragraph and then the next.

 

That's the real secret of writing a book. Writing one paragraph, one scene after another. Oh, but what are those scenes going to be? That is the question. That is what will make me stare out my window in front of my desk and not see the birds flying in and out to the birdfeeder, but instead see the story playing out in my imagination.

 

It's hard to write those first words, Chapter One. I never feel ready. I never think I know enough about the history of whatever era I've chosen. I always feel as if I need to find out just a little more about the characters' background.  After all, it's their story. But there comes a time when you just have to start. And so, we'll go on a tour of discovery, the characters and I, and hope we can figure out what happens next.

 

Yes, I do hope I have the audacity to begin again. To write yet one more book. Audacity - some of the synonyms for it are courage, bravery, boldness, nerve, daring. While it's true that perseverance is a very necessary attribute to a writer and talent a good companion to have on the writing road, here at the beginning, with nothing but the blank screen in front of me, audacity is the word I need. The courage to begin. The boldness to believe it possible. The nerve to try to make fiction real. Audacity. I can use a double helping next week.

 

Also, next week, I'm hoping to unveil a new feature here on One Writer's Journal as I get ready for Scent of Lilacs to be back out for readers in March. The Hollyhill Book of the Strange, or should that be the ordinary?

 

Thanks for reading!

 

Before and After

I took some of the grandkids to the creek on Friday. It's April and won't be summer for quite a few more weeks, but the day was warm. In the seventies. The creek is spring fed from underground so the water stays chilly, but the plan was to keep on stepping stones, see the wildflowers, and maybe spot a crawdad or two or a lizard. The older kids even took cameras claiming to want to get some pictures of the wildflowers. But when you're eleven and nine and four, the lure of the water wins out over the delicate sight of wildflowers. And even if you're extra careful, there's always that first slip on one of those slippery rocks and whoops! Your shoes are wet. So there's really no need in trying to keep your feet out of the creek. You might as well do a little wading. Then maybe the next time you fall right down in the creek and after a few more slips, if you're four, you forget to even say you slipped. You just jump right in to the deeper pools. And because you're with Grammy, it turns out okay and you end up splashing in a creek way before normal creek splashing time by the calendar.

A crawdad did get caught and has ended up being named Claw. Some wildflower pictures did get taken, but Grammy pointed her camera at the little flower falling into the creek. The first picture is the before. While the creek hasn't yet pulled her in. The second picture is when all pretense of staying dry has been abandoned. Thankfully she has understanding parents who haven't banned them from going anywhere near a creek with their grandmother - yet. Of course their father remembers having those "accidental" falls into the creek himself.

In trying to come up with a title for this post, I thought of the before and after angle. That's sort of the way I have to think about my characters and their stories. I need my picture of them before they start living in my story. I have to know about them. What they were doing before the curtain rises on my story. Then I have to think about them after the story gets going. What are they going to do? What are they going to learn? How are they going to change? What will happen? That's where I am with my story now. In the middle of wondering some of those things. I know what's going to happen in a vague, dreamy kind of way. But I need to come up with a word trail to make those dreams show up in vivid scenic colors. Maybe it will help if I think about taking my characters to my story creek and letting them fall in. Then we - me and my characters - can rush along with the creek and have an adventure on the way to the end.

On Facebook last week I asked my friends what outside fun things they did as kids. How about you? What did you think was the most fun to do outside when you were a kid? Did you ever fall in a creek - accidently on purpose?

What Happens Next?

At church this morning, I got a nice compliment from a friend. Well, actually a couple of nice comments. One, she said she'd finished my book, Angel Sister in the wee hours of the morning. True, she does have trouble sleeping sometimes, but at least I didn't put her to sleep. But before she told me that she looked over at me - we're pew sharers - and said "Where did she, that woman live? Their house was gone, wasn't it? And what about Lorena? Where did she live?" At first I didn't know what she was talking about. What woman? Then I realized she meant Fern in my story. But she was asking the questions like Fern and Lorena were neighbors down the road and they had kept on living after she read "The End." And that's a good thing for me.
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Of course the characters were very real to me and I still find myself thinking about their story, replaying it and living it over with them. And I did imagine what happened to them later after the story I wrote down was through. And no, I'm not telling what that was. First, who knows? I might still get the chance to write the "rest of their story." Second, once you as a reader have read the story and taken the characters into your minds and hearts, then you can have the fun of deciding what happens next.
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I visited a book club a year or so ago. The readers were discussing The Believer. It was so interesting to sit there hearing the conversation going on around me about what Ethan and Elizabeth did next. They were delving into motivations, possibilities, and consequences that I hadn't pulled out into the open in my own mind. I could see what they meant, but I hadn't really consciously thought about it in the way they were. Again, that's a good thing for a writer. Especially a writer like me who does a lot of story navigating by instinct.
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People will ask me what's the theme of my story. I rarely know what to say. Maybe a good answer would be life. Of course a need to forgive or get forgiveness often runs through my stories, but that's a major part of living life. Forgiveness, love, dreams, faith, sorrow, hope, joy - all part of life.
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Somebody once told me that I was a storyteller, and I think that is what I am. I'm telling a story and if in that story I can show how faith and hope and forgiveness makes a difference in my characters' lives, then that's a bonus. Some of you may think that's awful. That I should be thinking more about my theme, my message, but I believe that shows up in the life stories. That it will show up in anybody's story - fictional or actual. Our faith journeys are important and what's important to us needs to be important to our characters. I like being able to write about that part of my characters' lives. And I feel blessed when readers tell me that one of my stories has them taking a closer look at their own faith journey. But I don't plan it out. I just write the story and trust the Lord to do the rest.
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So I'm glad my friend wanted to know what was going to happen next to Lorena and Fern. My story ended but life stories don't. Even when someone passes on, so much of that person is left behind with his or her family. Their influence, their love, their story continues on. So Lorena is out there, living the rest of her story in my imagination and maybe in yours. One thing sure, every night before she goes to bed she says, "My name is Lorena Birdsong."
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What do you think? Do the characters you read about live on? Do you give them futures in your imagination?
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Thank you so much for reading. Talk to you again on Wednesday. I'll have drawn for a winner for the gift cards by then. But if you send me an e-mail right away you can still get your name in the hat.

The Story Before

It was a busy weekend around here. Actually I don't suppose I was around here all that much. We were on the road to speeches and movies and weddings and singings. Friday I had the privilege of speaking to a group of grandparent tutors at their recognition and appreciation luncheon. It was good to hear about this great program to teach kids to read. These "grannies" and "grandpas" go into the schools and work with maybe five or six kids on their reading skills in half hour sessions four days a week. I once did some adult literacy teaching and I know how rewarding it is to teach a person to read. And these grannies and grandpas, on top of the satisfaction of knowing they have started these students toward a better future in school, they get lots of smiles and hugs from the kids who love the special attention. All the grandparents I talked to had a special spring to their step and a happy twinkle in their eyes. While most had a whole crew of grandkids and great grandkids of their own, they were happy to add a few "foster" grandkids. Many of them had been working with the program for five or more years and planned to keep at it as long as they were able. The program is funded by a government "Save the Children" grant. It's good to hear of a program that's working.

Since the day for writing was pretty much shot anyway, on the way home from Berea we stopped in Danville and treated ourselves to a movie. We deserved a good one since we'd gone out on our anniversary to a movie that had to be the worst movie ever. So we picked Robin Hood. That brings me to the story before. That's what the movie was. I kept waiting for them to be hiding out in the forest and robbing the rich to give to the poor. You know, how I'd always heard the story of Robin Hood. But this Robin Hood was out there fighting with the kings, defending England against France, falling in love with Marion. I hadn't realized it was the story before. At the end of the movie it said "And the legend begins." The movie gave a new slant on Robin Hood and wasn't the same bit over.

That got me to thinking about the story before. While I don't always write the story before when I'm writing my books, I need to know it. What brought my characters to this moment in their lives? What has happened to them in the past to make them the people they are in this story at this time? While we do grab characters out of our imaginations, the best characters are the ones we get to know. We go back and meet their parents. We look around at the school they attended, at the jobs they may have had before our story begins. We know what colors they like and whether ragweed makes them sneeze. Best of all we get to know what they want and what they're willing to do to make their dreams come true. The story before. This movie told Robin Hood's before story the same as the Star Wars movies did a few years back when they went back in time for the beginning of the drama. Everybody has a story before and so do our characters. It's a writer's challenge to weave bits of that story before into the story now in such a way that a reader gets to know our characters so well that the characters become real in their imaginations just as they are real in the storyteller's mind.

In the books you read, do you like knowing the story before or do you want to fly on with the story now?

A Visit to Red Scooter

I had the treat of getting to go to a book club meeting last week. One of the members contacted me and since the meeting was in a neighboring town, Taylorsville, I was able to make the drive to share their book talk. The picture is of a few of the ladies in the club. I always take my camera and I always forget to get it out until about half the people have gone home. But those still there posed with me. The club meets at The Red Scooter, an antique mall with lots of booths of neat items for sale. Not just antiques, but aprons and purses and used books and gourds and jewelry. I could go on and on. And of course, scooters. I'm not sure any of the scooters were for sale, but they were displayed all around. The owner of the store, Beverly Bentley-Ingram, said she and her brother were brainstorming a name for her business and when he suggested The Red Scooter, she knew that was it. One of the scooters is actually her red scooter that she had as a child. Beverly is the pretty lady in the black with a scarf around her neck. They also do an apron contest in May for Mother's Day. It sounded like the ladies there were always ready to do something fun.

~~And the nicest thing they thought was fun was reading my book, The Believer. They had lots of questions about the Shakers and comments about the characters in my book. It's always a fun thing for me as a writer to hear readers talking about my characters as though they are people they know. As though they could think about them continuing on living their fictional lives after the last page was read and the book was closed. That's a good thing. I've felt that about other writers' characters. I've felt that about my own characters. Sometimes those characters keep living on in my head trying to push in front of the characters I'm trying to get to know for my new story. It's like they're jumping up and down shouting "What about me? You're not going to just forget about me now, are you?" You know with all those past characters jumping around up there in my head, it's no wonder I forget things now and again. You know like how to turn the delay timer on the oven. By the way, I did actually get those dishes scrubbed clean and ready to char something new in them. =o)

~~It's not long now until The Seeker will be out. Actually that happens at the same time my work in progress is supposed to be finished. Uh-0h. I'd better get to work. Hope all of you have something fun planned for your week.

Frost on the Pumpkin

--At least there would be frost on the pumpkin if we had any pumpkins in the garden this year. The grass was white this morning. So I hunted up a last year's picture of my angel trumpet plant because this year's plant got frosted last night before it had a chance to bloom. I should have covered it up, but who can remember everything? Well, some people but not me.

--But the frost is a chilly reminder that makes us pay attention to the change of the seasons. We need to take a little time to enjoy the spectacle of red and gold leaves before they all drift down. Some of us will have to get out the rakes or leaf blowers and others of us will just enjoy walking through the leaves in the woods in the fresh, crisp October air. At night the stars look brighter in the night sky and in a few weeks there'll be a harvest moon. My dad used to go out on those moonlit nights in the fall and pick corn by hand all night long. Now farmers have machines that pick whole fields of corn in the same time as he might have picked a few rows.

--Just as the seasons change, so do things in our lives. People move to new houses or towns. Kids have to change schools. We start new jobs or learn new operations at our old jobs. Babies come along to change couples into families. New people come into our churches. Sometimes so many that the churches have to build new buildings.

--Change comes to writers too as they craft their stories. They live with a story for months, even years and then finally manage to write the words "The End." Sometimes it's hard to leave behind the characters you've lived with so long. But you change worlds in your minds as you leave one set of characters behind and go out into your imaginations to seek new people and new stories. A writer needs to embrace change. Not just from one story to the next, but within each story. Without change we wouldn't have much of a story since change is what keeps the readers turning pages to find out what happens on the next page or in the next chapter.

--I read a writing advice piece once that posed the question, "What changes in your story?" And that person's advice was "Everything." At least your characters have to show some changes. That's where I am right now. Figuring out my characters and wondering about the changes they are going to see and what the results of those changes might be. Is it going to cost them happiness? Or love? Maybe it will bring them love. That sounds like a happier ending. But for sure they aren't going to be the same people who stepped up on my stage in the first scene. Nor will I be the same by the time I write "The End" one more time. Months will have passed. Life is a hands on experience. That's the way the Lord surely meant it to be. The Bible promises us He is the same yesterday, today, tomorrow and forever more, but we are continually learning and thus changing. It's how we're designed.

--Hope you have some great life experiences this week and that your flowers escaped the frost so they can keep blooming a few more weeks. Looking out the window I can see my poor angel trumpet lily frozen and ruined. But I raise my eyes and the sun is lighting up the red and gold in the trees down the way. There's beauty to each season.

Finishing the Race

Hi, everybody. Another Wednesday, but this one not the ordinary mid-week hump Wednesday. My daughter and her husband are visiting this week after a weekend in Texas where Gary, my son-in-law, entered and finished an Ironman race. That's impressive. It took him five hours and forty-three minutes to swim a mile plus, bike fifty some miles and run thirteen miles. The question he's heard most from us is "Why?" I don't think any of us could imagine doing one of those things. I might walk thirteen miles, but not run them. So we are admiring his endurance and perseverance in finishing the race. And shaking our heads as we ask "Why would you want to do that to your body?"

So since they're visiting we went to see the babies in WV today. And the rest of the family there too. The twins have almost doubled in size since I last saw them and I have no trouble telling them apart. Now if I could just get the right name to roll off my tongue. I do that trick of calling every name but the right one. They say that's a grandma age thing. Oh well. The grandma benefits are well worth a little aging.

But back to the perserverance of finishing the race. I've always thought perserverance was the greatest attribute a writer can have. It takes perseverance to finish a book length piece of fiction. It takes perseverance to finish any length piece of fiction and then go back and rewrite it until it's right. It takes perseverance to keep on trying when rejections come knocking on your door and editors aren't loving the work you're doing. Perseverance is what keeps you going when you entertain thoughts of quitting. It's perseverance that tells you the next book, the next story might be the one. So here's a quote or two about stiffening your writer's backbone and continuing to write what you know you must.

"The whole duty of a writer is to please and satisfy himself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one." ...William Strunk

"Men fail much oftener from want of perseverance than from want of talent." ...William Cobbett

"Even the woodpecker owes his success to the fact that he uses his head and keeps pecking away until he finishes the job he starts." Coleman Cox

I'll be in West Virginia at the Book Fest on Saturday, October 11 at 10 a.m. Hope if any of you are in the area you'll come on over and say hi. I just found out my oldest WV granddaughter has a volleyball match at noon, so there goes my one sure attendee. The rest of the grandkids are a little young to care about hearing grandma talk about developing characters. They're too busy developing their own characters. So wish me luck and a few interested participants in my workshop. I'll be sure to catch you up on the good and the bad (hope there's not much of that) of it all on Sunday.

Characters and the Things They Do

Hi everybody. I'm a little early this weekend, but Sunday promises to be busy. Besides catching up my blog is a good excuse not to be peeling apples the way I should be doing. That wind last weekend blew bushels off my trees. I sneaked over to my neighbor's house and left a box full on her porch. I'm thinking about finding somebody else to give another bushel to. Then I can get back to figuring out how I'm going to get the rest of them picked and canned or given away. They're nice apples and we've been eating them fast as we can. Us and the deer. My mama deer has started to feel so at home out in my yard now that she just looks irritated if I come outside before she's through eating. She'll run away if I insist, but she doesn't really want to. That bodes ill for her when hunting season starts. Not from me, but from some hunter in the area.

But in spite of the deer's appetite - and my dog, Dub, eats them too - there are still a lot of apples left. I'm hoping no more near hurricane force winds come along to knock them off before I can get some of them picked.

I talked to a bookclub in Washington state last night. They were just getting started with their bookclub and were having their second meeting. I have always wanted to be part of a bookclub, but now I'm not sure I'd have time to get the books read before the meetings. Still what could be more fun than reading a book and then talking about it with other readers? My sisters and Mom and I do that sometimes. We don't always agree on which books are best, but it's fun talking about the different ones we read. My oldest sister has been keeping a list of the books she's read for years. I started doing that a few years ago, but I wish I had done it forever the way she has just so I could keep up with what I've read. Lately I haven't read enough fiction. A lot of history, but not so much fiction for the fun of it.

Stephen King says if you don't read, you shouldn't try to write. And I can't argue with that. I tell the young wanna-be writers I meet that the best thing they can do to prepare themselves to write is read. I don't think they believe me, but I know it was true for me. I'm thankful for the years when I was a teen and had extra reading time to let the words of other writers bury themselves in my brain while I absorbed how they managed to put together those words to make a story that entranced me. I am going to carve out more reading time somehow. I need those fresh words of other writers to keep my own writing fresh.

What I'm really wanting to write about tonight is one of the questions a bookclub member asked me last night. She wanted to know why one of the characters in my book, The Outsider, had done what she did. Why I let what happened to the character happen. That's a good question. I'm sure if you've read very many books, you've read a story where the character did something you didn't like. I certainly have. I've read books where I wanted to tear out the last chapter because I wanted a different ending. But as long as the author can make me believe that yes, that is what happened whether I like it or not, I'm okay with it. And that's what I try to do with my stories. The Outsider is set in 1812. Life was different then. Fevers were deadly. Women had few options for independent living. Most religions had strict moral codes. War was as much a struggle against the elements as against the enemy. I wanted to keep my characters within the history of the era.

But the real truth of why any of my characters do whatever they do is because that's just what they do. When I'm writing, the characters' lives unfold in my mind. At times I point them in this or that direction, but once I get them going along my story road, sometimes I'm simply along for the ride. I might have a general idea of where they're headed. Especially my historical books like The Outsider where I must fit my story into a history timeline. But I didn't have that with my Hollyhill books. Story ideas developed through Jocie and the other characters as I wrote. I didn't plan Wes saying he was from Jupiter until he said so. I didn't plan Aunt Love's story until I was writing it. So far my characters have come to life enough in my head that I've been able to do that. That's not to say I don't do a little guiding as I go along to keep from getting completely off track with my story. I suppose it's a delicate balance letting your characters tell you their stories and letting them take over your story. And you know, after I wrote that sentence, I'm not sure which way is best. What do you think?

Of course, every writer has his or her own method and way to write. What works for one might not work for another. And if I had wanted to, I could have told Wes that saying he was from Jupiter was just too crazy, but the story wouldn't have been as much fun and you wouldn't have gotten to know Wes nearly as well if I'd done that. And what happens in The Outsider fits the time and the history and the characters. I hope I was able to make any of you who may have read it believe that. That's the real trick - to make up a story that readers believe.

I'm available to talk to bookclubs anytime, so if you pick one of my books to read and would like me to give your club a call during your meeting, just contact me from my website, http://www.annhgabhart.com/.

Hope you have a great Sunday. I might tell another Quartet Convention story on Wednesday.